Stanford economist Roger Noll, a key witness for the plaintiffs in the anti-trust lawsuit against the NCAA. / Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Sports

by Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Sports

by Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Sports

OAKLAND - For nearly 11 hours, spanning each of the first three days of trial in the Ed O'Bannon class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken mostly listened as an attorney from each side queried an economic expert for the plaintiffs.

Then, late Wednesday morning, she decided it was her turn.

In a span of about 20 minutes, she rattled off a set of questions for Stanford emeritus economics professor Roger Noll. They all centered on an important aspect of the NCAA's defense - its various justifications for its limits on what Bowl Subdivision football and Division I men's basketball players can receive while playing college sports. Predictably, Noll provided answers that did not help the NCAA's case that allowing athletes to receive a scholarship basically comprising tuition, room, board, books and mandatory fee helps schools keep college sports distinct, competitively balanced and integrated with education.

Moments later, over an objection from the NCAA, Wilken said she wanted to let proceed a discussion of less restrictive alternatives to the NCAA's current setup. That will be another determining factor in Wilken's legal analysis of whether to grant the plaintiffs an injunction that would prohibit the NCAA from limiting what football and men's basketball players can receive in exchange for playing their sports.

Meanwhile, in the background, a dispute continued to escalate over how much of the NCAA's TV and digital rights contracts with CBS and Turner could become public. Parts of those deals already have become part of the public case record, but they mostly have remained sealed. The plaintiffs say that as part of their trial presentation, they want to discuss more of the agreements. The NCAA, CBS and Turner objected, but after Wilken recently rejected requests from the Big 12 Conference and Conference USA to keep most of their TV deals sealed, CBS and Turner redoubled their efforts in filings on Wednesday. In CBS' filing, it asked to become formally involved in the case for the limited purpose of more directly arguing its position to Wilken.

However, on a day when another named plaintiff, former Alabama football player Tyrone Prothro, provided testimony about the real-life demands on athletes and their views of how their names, images and likenesses are used by schools - and NCAA lead attorney, Glenn Pomerantz, provided a cross-examination that provided equally vivid details about all the benefits that Prothro got from his Alabama career - Wilken dominated only a little bit of time, but a lot of the day.

-Wilken asked about the contention that the limits help result in athletes being more likely to be involved with other students.

Noll said that, as a practical matter in general, athletes in these two most prominent sports don't interact much with other students, but that the existence of separate living facilities for athletes makes this less likely. He also said the demands on football and men's basketball players' time are such that they have an "inability to participate in (other) extracurricular activities or have jobs" that might enhance their interactions with other students.

-Wilken asked about the contention that allowing football and men's basketball players to receive additional compensation for the colleges' use of the name, image and likeness would result in the creation of economic elites on campus.

Noll said there already is "a lot of differentiation among students in college" based on their families' economic backgrounds and that there is a difference "in the ability of poor students to take advantage" of all that colleges have to offer and the ability of "wealthy students" to do the same. He also pointed out that non-athletes "participate in other activities and can be paid for that participation," like working for the student newspaper, appearing in a theater production or an entrepreneurial enterprise. "That's simply prohibitive for student-athletes," he said.

-Wilken asked about the contention that the NCAA's limits help result in football and men's basketball players interacting with athletes from other sports.

Noll said: "It seems to me that the field hockey team attending a football game is very different from the football team attending a field hockey game. (In the latter case), they would be the only people there. (In the former), they are just faces in the crowd." Noll added that there "already is a substantial financial disparities" between football and men's basketball players and athletes in many other sports because in many other sports, a scholarship can be - and frequently is - divided among more than one athlete. The NCAA's rules do not allow that in football, men's basketball and a handful of other sports.

-Wilken then asked about the contention that the compensation limits help keep athletics integrated with education.

Noll replied that this is "by far the most important thing" - and that there is "so much money to be made on football and men's basketball" that those sports' demands on the athletes get in the way. As TV deals have resulted in "college football going from being played on Saturday to being played every night of the week, it harms academic integration of the student-athletes. â?¦ The main issue is the lack of serious restrictions in the demands that can be placed on student-athletes."

That covered quite a bit of ground, but before Noll left the stand, Wilken intervened again. During a re-examination that followed the NCAA's cross-examination, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, Michael Hausfeld, began asking Noll whether there are less restrictive alternatives to the NCAA's compensation. Rohit Singla, the attorney for the NCAA who had been questioning Noll, objected. Wilken overruled, saying she wanted to hear about less restrictive alternatives.

And Hausfeld proceeded to discuss with Noll a comment that Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky made in an interview with CBSSports.com in which he said he would support considering allowing athletes to receive money for name, image and likeness use that's put aside into a trust fund and collected later. "I think we're going to have to look at that and we're going to have to find a way to make it happen within the collegiate space," Banowsky had said.

The NCAA's chief legal officer, Donald Remy, said after the session that when the NCAA puts on its case later in the trial, it will offer expert witnesses who will support its justifications for the compensation limits.

Next came Prothro, who echoed many of the points that O'Bannon, the former UCLA basketball star, made in testimony on Monday. He said he was guided toward a major that fit with his football demands. He said he has aspired to be a coach, so general studies "was the major they put me in." (He said he now works as an account manager for Coca-Cola in Alabama.) He said that he believed an avatar in an EA video game was him because, it had had his jersey number, was depicted with wrist bands on the elbows "the way I had those wrist bands on my elbows" and was listed at 5-8 and 173 pounds, "the exact attributes for me in the (game) program."

Prothro said that even though he was on an athletic scholarship before suffering a career-ending injury and another type of scholarship afterward, he needed to take out $10,000 in student loans and still owes money on those loans even though he graduated in 2008.

Then, as occurred with O'Bannon on Monday, NCAA lawyer Pomerantz engaged in a cross-examination that exposed inconsistencies between Prothro's testimony Wednesday and his pre-trial deposition. Pomerantz also elicited from Prothro comments in which Prothro said he would not have been able to afford to attend Alabama if not for the football scholarship and that Prothro agreed that while the video game avatar had many of his attributes, the avatar's face was the same as that which appeared on other avatars.

"Tyrone Prothro is a perfect example of an individual who otherwise wouldn't have access to higher education and badly wanted that education and through a scholarship at the University of Alabama was able to go there and then the reality was when he was injured, the university stood up for him, continued his scholarship, allowed him to complete his education and get a degree," Remy said.

But Hausfeld, in a telephone interview, said: "What you heard from (Prothro and O'Bannon) is that their educational opportunities were limited" because of their sports demands and that later in the trial, his side will have "testimony and materials" showing that football and men's basketball players "cluster in particular majors" in order to make it easier for them to remain eligible to play "not to maximize their educations."